“I really didn’t want to beat up on WinMo here, because at this point it just feels tired. But man, come on Microsoft, you’re giving me no choice. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn’t just a letdown—it barely seems done,” John Herrman reports for Gizmodo.
“It’s nowhere near the upgrade that Windows Mobile needs to be even remotely interesting,” Herrman reports. “It’s a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It’s an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won’t work.”
Herrman reports, “It doesn’t really feel like a redesign—it feels like someone went through 6.1 and adjusted a few values. Add a few pixels of menu spacing here, some plasticky highlight graphics there, and BOOM. 6.5. Let’s go to lunch.”
“The confusingly-named Mobile Internet Explorer 6 is to Mobile IE 5 what IE 7 was to IE6 on the desktop. Get that? This is to say it’s a massive upgrade, but like IE7, which added tabs and popup blocking about two years after everyone else had it, Mobile IE6 is at least a generation behind its competitors,” Herrman reports. “Microsoft isn’t really advertising the SUPER SPEED of Windows Mobile 6.5, which makes sense: 6.5 is based on the same underlying Windows CE version (5.2) as 6.1, and even 6.0. In other words, its guts are oooold.”
There’s much more in the full review here.
Bill Rigby reports for reuters, “Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer played down recent industry talk that the company was developing its own smartphone. ‘We are not here to announce today that we are making phones,’ he said at an event in Paris.”
“The market for phones is set to treble or quadruple in the next few years, Ballmer said, and Microsoft is ready to challenge other phone makers for market share,” Rigby reports. “He added that Windows Mobile’s share of the mobile phone market is equal to Apple’s. ‘We and Apple are and we’re chasing the two other players,’ said Ballmer, referring to Nokia, the world’s No. 1 smartphone maker, and Research in Motion.”
Rigby reports, “Microsoft also announced a new online application store, where users can buy 246 applications for their phones.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Ballmer is batshit insane.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GizmoDan” for the heads up.]
MDN Take == coffee spit-take. oh my god that was succinct and hilarious.
@ PR – AMEN!
The most surprising – and amusing – thing about this review is that Gizmodo was fast becoming Microsoft’s press darling, being treated to “exclusive” sneak peaks of M$ projects like their retail outlet plans and their vaporware Courier tablet. They even gave some staffers tours of their campus. I was concerned that Giz was starting to turn, but I guess John Herrman hasn’t. He absolutely (and rightfully) skewers 6.5 in a way I see reserved for rubber dog crap export products. LOL at your press strategy, Redmond. Maybe get John in on the next tour of products you have no intent to actually release?
My faith in the site is at least partially restored. Thank you, John Herrman.
Another gem from the article:
To put it another way, handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic.
It doesn’t just “border on” pathetic – it’s the capitol city of Pathetic Nation.
Oh, and you just have to love the comments there from the poor Windows Evangelists, trying to sell this piece of crap – in particular, “CulverSnass” (or is that “Culver’s an ass”?) clearly goes through a list of WinMo talking points. Sorry, dude, but fewer and fewer people are buying the crap you’re selling.
Market share numbers tend to differ depending on what stats are being reported. Quarterly sales share clearly belongs to Apple, as MS is selling a lot fewer mobile OS licenses than Apple is selling iPhones. However, if you compare cumulative sales, where Apple has been selling for little over 2 years, and MS for more than 10, they may be running neck-and-neck at this point. Considering the current trends, where iPhone continues to outsell WinMob by larger and larger margins, the neck-and-neck cumulative market share will soon be not so close anymore.
Besides, Ballmer is a salesman. In fact, he talks exactly like a used car salesman — distorting the truth to the breaking point, in order to sell turd for gold to an unsuspecting sap.
What Ballmer doesn’t mention is that Apple has gotten that market share while selling only one phone that is available on only one network (in the US).
I think he meant to say “Apple is standing on our neck”
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And of course Ballmer suddenly switches to talking about US rather than his usual global talk, conveniently forgetting to mention that worldwide the WinMo brand is just gone. Nobody uses it anymore, for example the only smartphones you see in the UK are iPhones and Blackberrys. Same with continental Europe. There simply is no WinMo presence.
Microsoft are beginning to crumble and Ballmer knows it. That’s fear you read in his words.
Oh and BTW, there is now only $54bn of difference between AAPL and MSFT market cap. That gap just keeps getting smaller doesn’t it?
Best. MDN. Take. Ever.
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I think Ballmer made a “rounding error” somewhere.
Neck and neck with Apple as Microsoft falls and Apple rises. Great analysis MDN, Ballmer is delusional. Soon we will be neck and neck in operating systems and he will think it’s great.
He must be a twin because no one person can be that stupid.
10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag. Get back in the basment uncle fester!